


Your Protector Laid Down to Die

by stardropdream



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:19:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dreams will not stop until she understands what she must do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Protector Laid Down to Die

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ August 1, 2009.

He moved diligently down the halls, cutting corners and moving quickly. He knew exactly where he was going. He’d walked this path many times before in the past, and could have navigated his way with his eyes shut in the dark had it been necessary. As such, it was a beautiful, warm day outside. The sun hung high in the sky, with wispy clouds not daring to come near to the vibrant rays. A light summer breeze ruffled fringe and tree leaves, bending the grass to its whim as it traveled across the expansive landscape. He cut one more corner and skidded to a halt, inclining his head in greeting to the ladies-in-waiting. With a wave of a hand from one of them, he was pointed to her location.  
  
He nearly tripped through the door in his haste. He slid it open and similarly slipped inside.   
  
He spotted her instantly—his silent beacon. She looked up from where she sat at the altar, turning her head and their eyes meeting. The corners of her eyes crinkled as he came over to her.   
  
“My lady,” he said gently in greeting, hands falling lightly over her swollen belly. She shifted, sighing lightly as he did so. She shifted her head upwards to look at him, her lips curved into a serene smile. He smiled at her warmly.   
  
“My lord,” she greeted in return, eyes tender as he bent down to kiss her forehead, lips pressed against the center of her four-pointed clover. He pulled away, his lips still quirked into a smile. Her hand lifted to press against his cheek. “Welcome home.”   
  
“I’m back,” he agreed, smiling widely as the unborn child in her belly kicked against one of his hands. He laughed, “Seems like someone’s unhappy not to have you all to himself.”  
  
“He’s happy to see his father,” she corrected softly, her hands dropping to cover the larger, rougher hands on her pregnant stomach. “He visited me in a dream.”  
  
“Ah, so even young little things can dream,” he remarked and only looked a bit lost—he knew very little in the ways of magic, save for the magic he used to fight.   
  
“Their dreams are often ill-defined and abstract. He’s a sweet child,” she said lightly, looking down at her stomach affectionately. “And he’ll look like my lord.”   
  
“I’m sure he’ll have his mother’s kindness,” he pressed, insistent. He kissed her belly, cheeks pink as he looked up to smile at her.   
  
“You act as if he has no kindness to inherit from you, my lord,” she chided, laughter in her voice. His blush intensified but she didn’t falter as he ran her hands up his arms, resting on his shoulders. She whispered, “He will be strong, kind, and loyal, just as my husband is.”   
  
“You can tell all this from one dream?”  
  
“He was shy at first. He didn’t want to speak with me. Once he managed to speak, all he could talk about was how he hoped he could make his parents happy.”   
  
“Talkative kid.”  
  
“You lack inhibitions in dreams, especially children whose souls have not yet entered this world. He said whatever came to his mind without any restraint. He sounded much like my lord did when he was young.”  
  
“I’m not old yet.”  
  
“No, of course not.”   
  
He kissed her sweetly, hand brushing her long hair away from her face and cradling her head. When he broke away, he rested his forehead against hers, red eyes searching.  
  
“No bad dreams, though?” he whispered against her lips.  
  
“Priestesses do not have bad dreams,” she reminded, “Some of our dreams are unnerving, but there is not just good or evil in this world. Everything has its own shades.”  
  
“Perhaps,” he said vaguely, thumbs brushing over her cheekbone affectionately. “Then… what have your dreams shown you?”   
  
“Only whispers, nothing that I can see has to do with Suwa,” she supplied, looking into her husband’s eyes as she spoke.  
  
“So our son has stolen all your dreams’ attentions?” He laughed and grinned. “Stubborn little thing, isn’t he?”   
  
She laughed, closing her eyes as he kissed her eyelids. “Very much like his father in that way.”  
  
“My wife likes to tease,” he chuckled.  
  
She opened her eyes and her expression was soft and warm.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
He rushed down the walkways of his home, searching out his wife as quickly as he could. When he found the room with handmaidens bustling back and forth, he knew he would found her. He squeezed his way past the midwives, eyes searching out his wife among the rush of women. When he found her, laid out on a futon, hair down and messy, and arms wrapped around a bundle of blankets, he dropped down before her, hand smoothing over her head, pushing back sweat-dampened hair from her forehead.   
  
“Leave us,” he commanded, and the women filed out, sliding the door behind them to give the new family time alone. “My lady…”   
  
She did not speak, only smiled and shifted the bundle of blankets to reveal a little head, sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. The newborn infant shifted in his mother’s arms but did not awaken.   
  
“He was a quiet birth,” she murmured. “He didn’t make a sound…”   
  
He ran a knuckle over the baby’s cheek, staring in awe. “He’s so tiny…”  
  
“Mm,” she agreed. She shifted and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. She rested her head against his chest. “Would you like to hold him?”  
  
He stiffened and then silently nodded his head. She deposited the child in his arms. He looked overwhelmed just holding the child. He had conquered countless monsters and men without batting an eyelash, but in the face of such a tiny life, he was outmatched.   
  
“His name, my lord?”   
  
“Ah…” he murmured, still staring down at the child and already hopelessly in love with his son. “Did you have any ideas?”  
  
She laughed. “I believe my dear husband has no ideas.”  
  
“That’s—!” His face turned red.  
  
She smiled softly and watched the way her husband smiled down at their son, still looking terribly nervous and unsure about dropping him; but the hands that held the infant were sturdy and unwavering. She swiped her thumb thoughtfully along his jaw and laughed when he managed to tear his eyes away long enough to lay a kiss on her palm.   
  
“I can ask him tonight what he’d like to be called, if you prefer.”   
  
“Better he chooses the name he wants to be called then be stuck with some random name.”  
  
“My lord would not choose an unsatisfactory name, I’m sure. Whatever you wanted to call our son I’m sure would be precious to him.”  
  
“My wife is too kind.”  
  
“My lord has no confidence when it comes to a son. He’ll love you and be loyal to you.”   
  
His expression softened as the unnamed infant shifted sleepily in his father’s arms.  
  
“A-ah…”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Good evening, little one,” she greeted once she’d drifted into the dream her son laid out for her. Before, the dreams had been abstract, with no true location. Now, it resembled the place of his birth, the only thing he’d seen in the full twelve hours of his life.   
  
“…Hello,” he said quietly, staring up at her, still shy.   
  
She opened her arms to him and he ran to her instantly, curling comfortably into her arms as she cradled him close. In this dream, he was an older child, round-faced and resembling her husband. She cooed quietly into his ear and sang him a lullaby.  
  
“It’s good to see you,” she said sweetly once she’d finished.  
  
“H-hn,” he muttered into her neck, hands tangled into her long, cascading hair.   
  
“I wanted to know if you had a name you wished to call yourself,” she murmured into his hair.  
  
The dream around them glimmered and shifted, and they were walking in the Suwa of her youth, before the monsters had started attacking. Her son didn’t respond right away, cuddling into her and watching this strange new world with a slight furrow in his brow. He watched the way the trees swayed in the wind, the water flowed in the rivers, and the way the sun shined. His keen red eyes watched a hawk.  
  
He pointed. “That.”  
  
She smiled and held him close until she woke up.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Youou,” she said when her husband woke up. She leaned over him as he blinked his eyes, adjusting to the early morning light.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“His name is Youou,” she repeated, brushing the fringe away from his forehead.  
  
His lips curled into a smile. “Alright.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Mother!” a little boy called from his position in the mud, grinning from ear to ear. “Mother, it rained last night!”  
  
“So it did,” she agreed, laughing as her son rolled around in the mud. She stood to approach him when she suddenly came to a halt, feeling the strange pinpricks of magic tugging at her senses. She gasped quietly.  
  
Youou was on his feet instantly, rushing towards her, but hesitating on hugging her, mindful of the mud on his chest and coating his hands.   
  
“Mother, what’s wrong?”  
  
“Nothing’s wrong,” she reassured. Her breath came out shaky but she didn’t shake. She looked off towards the sky, looking beyond Suwa to a place she had never been but instinctually knew. “The Tsukuyomi has been born.”  
  
“Who?” Youou watched her, clearly distrustful of her reassurances.   
  
“She’s someone very important. She’s a dreamseer, like me.”   
  
“Is she as strong as you?” Youou wiped his hands on his pants before grabbing his mother’s robes.   
  
“Stronger. My magic is not that strong, Youou,” she said, looking up at the gibbous moon, present in the daytime sky. “She will be a strong priestess, indeed, the princess.”   
  
“I still think you’re the strongest,” Youou said grumpily, still as stubborn as ever.  
  
She laughed. “Thank you.”  
  
“Of course! And if anyone ever insults you, I’ll beat them up!”   
  
She gently pried his hands form her robes and held his hands tenderly between her own.  
  
“I have no doubt of that, my son.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“My lady,” she greeted as she entered the dreamseer’s dream. “Please pardon my intrusion.”   
  
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” her little voice said, wide, understanding eyes watching as the older of the two came closer.  
  
“You are the Tsukuyomi, yes?”  
  
“I am,” she said with a smile. “And you are the priestess of Suwa.”  
  
“I am.”  
  
“Good evening.” The young girl bowed her head. “I thought that you would visit me tonight.”   
  
“I’m happy to meet you, even if it was only through a dream that I could. I’ve had dreams of your arrival; I trust that you have had a safe journey to our world.”   
  
“Yes,” the Tsukuyomi agreed. “It was a safe delivery for my mother.”   
  
“I’m glad to hear it.”  
  
They stayed silent for a long moment, watching the scenery of the dream glimmer and shift. The tsukuyomi, though but a newborn in reality, was a wise and kind soul. They traveled through Suwa and the tsukuyomi’s castle.   
  
“It will be many years before we speak again.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
“I pray that the next time we meet it will be under the best of circumstances.”   
  
The tsukuyomi smiled and the two priestesses shared a look of understanding, of hope and the harsh reality that there were shadows in the future. The dream glimmered and began to fade.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
She passed her days with degrading health, though she kept her sickness a well kept secret. The providence of Suwa had enough problems without having to worry about the maintainer of the kekkai. She watched her husband fight hard to protect their home and looked on as her son grew more and more, resembling her lord more and more each day.   
  
When she collapsed for the first time, it was after trying to beckon her son from a tree. She coughed loudly and fell to her knees, distantly hearing her son calling out to her.   
  
She dreamed.   
  
Suwa destroyed. The kekkai gone. Her son alone, clutching her dead body.  
  
She woke up with a gasp, eyes wide and frightened, sweat clinging to her brow. The damp washcloth slipped from her face in her haste to sit up. Strong, but gentle, hands gripped her shoulders as tears slipped down her cheeks.   
  
“My lady…” her husband murmured, concerned. He held her until her sobs were gone and his image was not wavering behind a curtain of tears.   
  
“My lord,” she said. “When did you return?”  
  
“Not long ago; they told me you’d collapsed. And I came as soon as I heard. Youou was in frenzy, nothing could calm him down. What happened?”  
  
“It’s…” she paused, torn. “Please don’t worry over me, my lord.”  
  
“I’ll worry over you regardless. But if I knew what was wrong, there may be something I could do to help.”   
  
She shook her head.  
  
He gripped her hands, still looking concerned and worried, but his expression much more stern.   
  
“My stubborn wife,” he chided, cupping her face and looking at her. “Don’t hide your pain from me.”   
  
She closed her eyes, placing one hand over his, her fingertips small compared to his large hand. She was silent for a long moment, and one stray tear slipped out from her closed eyes. His hold on her softened but he did not pull away.  
  
“We can’t have any more children.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“I dreamed,” she whispered, opening her eyes. “About Suwa.”  
  
“What did you see?”   
  
She hesitated. He murmured her name, expression torn. He kissed her forehead. She wept softly and he pulled her to him, holding her close.   
  
“Suwa,” she whispered, “will fall.”  
  
He looked stricken. She wept silently.  
  
“…How? Can it be prevented?”  
  
“I do not know,” she breathed, eyebrows knitting together. “The dream was just flashes, horrible images. I do not know why it happened, or how.”   
  
She shook and he wrapped his arms around her, cradling her and she clung to him, smoothing her hands up and down his back, reassuring herself that he was still there. His hands tangled in her hair, smoothing out the long black locks, rubbing the base of her neck in an attempt to calm her.   
  
They did not speak.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“My ladyship.”  
  
“Your highness,” she greeted with a small bow. She lifted her head and sat down beside the young girl.   
  
“It’s lovely to see you again.”  
  
“Your highness, I have dreamed of Suwa.”  
  
“As have I.”  
  
“So I suppose I do not need to explain the situation to you, then?” she asked, and felt her body tense up as she recalled the images she’d seen. In the dreamscape, a black night, she could almost see the briefest flashes—her young son sobbing and holding her husband’s sword. She clenched her eyes shut, trying to banish the images, but they resounded behind her eyelids.   
  
“I have seen Suwa’s destruction in my dream, and that ‘Kurogane’ shall come into my care.” The young girl’s words broke her from her distress, and she opened her eyes to watch the young child’s spirit, peering up at her with a look of sympathy and of heavy knowledge.   
  
“Yes,” she said sadly.  
  
“But the question remains… whether it will come to pass,” the princess said quietly.   
  
“Do you know?” the priestess of Suwa asked, eyes needy and filling with tears.   
  
The Tsukuyomi was silent in thought as she weighed her words. “I do not.”   
  
“I must find out,” she murmured. “If it can be prevented. How it happens, why it happens… I must know.”   
  
The princess nodded, and together they faded.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
She sat by the ancient river that flowed through Suwa, granting its protection. She coughed weakly, covering her mouth with a sleeve. She’d been growing sicker lately, and as of yet she’d managed to hide it. If the people of Suwa knew their protector was growing ill, they would be needlessly worried. And if her husband knew, he would be distracted while in battle. And the last thing she needed was for her son to fret, if it was true the visions she’d seen. She kept silent.   
  
She heard footsteps behind her and she knew who it was even before he sat down beside her.  
  
“My lady. You should be sleeping.”   
  
She smiled and watched the full moon. He watched her silently for a moment and looked as if he were going to speak before she said, “Welcome home, my lord.”  
  
He let out a small sigh. “My wife is so stubborn. I see where our son gets it from.”  
  
“You’re just as stubborn,” she reminded, her laughter like bells in the night air.   
  
“You won’t sleep because of the dreams,” he said lightly, keen red eyes watching her. “Is that it?”  
  
Her eyes widened and she whipped her head away from the moon to stare at him. She felt the familiar sting of tears at the back of her eyes but she managed to swallow the urge to cry out. Instead, her hands clenched in the folds of her priestess garb, and watched him in surprise and, perhaps, a hint of terror.   
  
Her shoulders sagged, but she still looked stricken. “My lord is too observant sometimes.”   
  
He laughed and it almost didn’t sound fearful. “So I am right.”   
  
“…Yes,” she admitted.   
  
“But you won’t tell me what you’ve seen.” He shifted, watching her profile. “Why won’t you tell me?”   
  
“They’re only images… I can’t make them out properly,” she lied, her eyes falling shut. Her heart thundered and this time she spoke the truth, “I do not know what it all means yet.”   
  
He spoke her name, soft, and when she looked up at him, again he looked just as stricken and lost as she did. His eyebrows slanted and his red eyes glowed in the moonlight, staring at her silently, one hand gripping her side and the other her shoulder, squeezing but unsure whether to pull her to him. He seemed to settle on the decision that he so, and so he collected her into his arms, holding her around the middle and resting his lips against her temple. She melted against him, her face crumbling as the tears spilled silently down her cheeks, wetting his shoulders. He did not complain, and she did not speak for a long while, just allowing herself that moment of unrestrained sorrow, thankful that he was there to hold her steady.   
  
When she did lift her head, it was so she could place a hand on his cheek and stroke the sun-kissed face, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw and the dip of his cheekbone. He stared at her, visibly curious and concerned but knowing that she would offer him the information when she was ready, which, she feared, would not be until she knew exactly what it was she was seeing.   
  
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to him and to the night.   
  
His face crumbled and he gave her a wan smile, wobbling at the corners as if he, too, were about to break down. He shook his head and his red eyes were earnest when he told her, “You never have to apologize to me, my lady.”   
  
She closed her eyes and felt him press his forehead against hers, their noses brushing one another’s as he breathed the same air as she, their lips moments away, and the lightest of touches passing between them until they were no longer touches but promises. She inhaled the shaky air he exhaled and her second hand rose to touch his other cheek, cupping his face and keeping him near. When she opened her eyes again, he was looking at her.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Pain. Blood. Screaming.   
  
Her son, clenching her dead body, stiffening in the cold night air. Gripping her husband’s sword and staring hollowly out into the distance, locking eyes with a girl she had never seen in real life but knew right away as the Tsukuyomi.   
  
A scar that struck down the center of her son’s palm.   
  
Death. Funerals. Nothing.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
She cried out when she woke up, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes. Beside her, her husband slept peacefully, unaware of his wife’s current state. Her breathing came uneasily for what felt like an eternity, as her throat constricted and lungs screamed. She coughed into the sleeve of her sleeping yukata and she kept her eyes firmly shut, trying to settle down her raging heart and fill her lungs with the sweet night air.   
  
“Youou…” she gasped, and wept silently for a long moment.   
  
She stood and left the bedroom, padding down the veranda towards where her young son slept. She slid the door opened, and found him where he always slept, hands curled around his blankets and coiling into a small ball on his side. He never moved while he slept, but was a very light sleeper. She moved swiftly to his side, careful not to make a sound.   
  
She sat beside him, watching him in the pale moonlight a moment, wiping the tears from her eyelashes before reaching out a hand and smoothing her hand over his hair, the exact color, texture, and style of her husband’s.   
  
Her bottom lip wobbled.   
  
Presently, he stirred and his red eyes, hazed with sleepiness, opened and locked on her. “Mother…”   
  
“I’m sorry, I woke you,” she whispered, her voice soft and, therefore, masking the infinite sadness hanging from her every breath.   
  
He shook his head, eyes falling shut again. “It’s okay. What’s wrong?”   
  
“Nothing,” she reassured, curling her fingers around his black hair and pulling through it softly, massaging his scalp with her fingertips. “Go back to sleep, my darling.”   
  
She did not need to tell him twice. He quickly fell back to sleep. She stayed there for many hours afterwards until the sun teased the horizon beyond Suwa and she returned to bed.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Youou… Kurogane will, in the future, live with me and my family,” the Tsukuyomi told the priestess one night, the dreamscape shimmering haphazardly in the background.   
  
“You have dreamt it?” she whispered.  
  
The other, younger priestess nodded. “He lives.”  
  
She nodded, tears in her eyes. “That’s all I can hope for.”   
  
The princess remained respectfully silent as the priestess regarded the darkness of the dream.  
  
“So long as he lives, I am happy.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Blood.   
  
So much blood. Her son, grown, sent away from his princess’ castle, from the only world he’d ever known. A mysterious magician. Young children from another world. A mysterious creature that transported them.   
  
The witch of dimensions.   
  
Blood. Loss. Pain. A world with no water. A world with nothing but snow. A world of sand and repeating sunsets.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
A hole in the wall.  
  
A sword.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Most nights it was impossible for her to breathe.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Her powers were limited, but she could maintain enough control to call upon the witch of dimensions. She leaned over the flat surface of the waters of Suwa, a small outlet springing off from the main river. The water was clear and flat, like a mirror’s edge. She leaned over it, until her hair threatened to spill over her shoulder and disturb the flatness of the water.   
  
Her eyes glowed in concentration and the water shimmered until a woman appeared on the otherwise. She didn’t seem surprised to see the priestess; on the contrary, she gave a small smile as if recognizing her after a long absence.   
  
“Hello,” the priestess said quietly, inclining her head slightly out of respect.   
  
The witch’s smile softened and in that face the priestess could see ages of mystery and magic and pain, and she knew that this woman knew what she had come to ask and what would come to pass.   
  
“I see you wish to ask me questions,” the witch murmured.   
  
“Yes,” she agreed.   
  
“There’s a price.”   
  
“I understand.”   
  
“Are you prepared to hear the answers to these questions you have?” the woman asked, her voice soft and distance as they bounced off the ripples in the water.   
  
She nodded.   
  
The woman closed her eyes a moment. “Your price for asking these questions is baring the weight of the knowledge you’ll learn. Are you still prepared?”   
  
She nodded again. And the witch nodded back.  
  
The priestess asked her questions.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“My lady,” her husband said in alarm once she returned to her home, her eyes widened and her face paled.   
  
When she laid eyes on him, her knees shook and she collapsed. He was quick enough to catch her, grasping her elbows and pulling her to his chest just before she was about to hit the ground. She looked up at him, eyes wide and haunted.   
  
“My lord,” she whispered and touched his cheek before she had to slide her gaze away. “My lord…”   
  
“What’s happened? Are you ill?”   
  
She shook her head. “I just need to rest. I used a lot of energy today…”  
  
“For the kekkai?” he asked, eyebrows knitting.  
  
Instead of answering, she merely smiled at him wanly. “I need to rest, please.”   
  
“Of course,” he said, shaking his head and looking sheepish for a moment. “I’ll take you there.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
The Tsukuyomi was waiting for her as she entered the dreamscape, just as she knew she would be. The princess smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes and the priestess’ heart thundered in her weakening chest.   
  
She sank to her knees before the princess, hands digging against the soft dirt in the dreamscape.   
  
“My lady…” she began, looking up at the younger priestess, infinite sadness in her eyes.   
  
The other priestess nodded in sympathy. “I have seen these dreams as well. It’s how I knew that Kurogane would come into my care.”  
  
“I contacted the witch of dimensions,” she whispered.   
  
“Is that so?”  
  
“My son… he’s to be a pawn, meant to… help for something that will surely come to pass in the future,” she murmured quietly, curling her hands together and feeling her heart thundering, her blood roaring through her veins. “And I know that I can’t change this future, no matter how much I may want to.”   
  
“It’s a burden those who see the future must experience.”   
  
“I do not know what will happen to any of us should I act against what I have seen.” Her breath came uneasily. “My son will live and grow stronger, but it’s impossible to breathe when I think about the pain he’ll have to experience in his life.”   
  
She looked over to the Tsukuyomi and she, too, looked as if she would cry.  
  
The priestess of Suwa bit her lip. “My husband, myself, my people and my home… the only survivor will be my son. And the pain he will carry in his heart because of that is almost too heavy for me to bear.”  
  
“I understand.”   
  
“But this goes beyond Suwa. I understand that. Because of what the witch said… I do not fully understand but… but there are forces beyond even our control. Something that must be stopped, and put to rest. And my son is someone who will help with that ending.”   
  
The two sat in a long, painful silence.  
  
The landscape in the dream shifted and drifted to what the priestesses had seen in their dreams—a world made of desert, a hot, unforgiving sun that hung low in the air and spread long, red shadows across sand dunes—a cold, desolate world with a castle on a mountain, snow falling in sheets and leaving the world a uniform white—a wasteland, with rounded stones and large monsters, one lone building standing in the rubble and housing people haunted by their own reality—the Tsukuyomi’s castle—a shop in the middle of a grassy lot, the witch of dimensions sitting alone, smoking, and peering up at the moonless sky.   
  
She looked away from the sky and met the priestess’ eyes silently. Then her face rippled away into a faraway smile of sympathy, pain, and understanding.   
  
Empathy.  
  
The world dissolved away.   
  
The priestess of Suwa and the priestess of Nihon sat in silence together, watching the dream world fall away into darkness.   
  
“I don’t know if I can tell them,” she told the princess. “My husband, my people. I most certainly can’t tell my son.”   
  
She clenched her eyes shut.  
  
“Is it selfish of me, to just be so resigned to die and to try and do nothing to stop this? I do not know how I will die, so even so I cannot prevent it but…” A hand strayed to her chest, where she could hear the sickness rattling against the inside of her lungs. “But I know that I will die, eventually. And my husband and people. How can I call myself a protector if I will willingly usher them all to their death, for the sake of my son and for the sake of worlds I’ve never seen and never will see?”   
  
She looked to Tsukuyomi and found the girl crying.  
  
“I’m sorry. I cannot even begin to imagine your choice, my ladyship.”   
  
The woman found that she was crying, too.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
“My lady… you won’t eat, you won’t sleep… you won’t talk to me.”   
  
She looked over to her husband, who sat away from her. The distance had never felt so great.   
  
“You’re pale and silent and morose. Please… please, let me help you.”   
  
She shook her head. “There is nothing that you can do for me.”  
  
He looked insulted by this statement and recoiled a bit, looking pained and helpless. He moved, shifted closer to her. She watched him and felt more and more miserable with every inch he drew closer.  
  
“It’s been months, my lady,” he murmured. “Can’t you trust me with what’s bothering you?”   
  
“It isn’t a matter of trust,” she protested, her face crumbling into a look of utter misery. “It isn’t that.” She touched his face and bit her lip. “I trust you with my life, with my entire being. I—”  
  
“What is it?” he whispered, cupping the hand on his face with his own hand, keeping her there and refusing to let her draw back and hide inside herself. “Is it your dreams? What have you seen? Please… my lady…”   
  
“What’s the most important lesson you ever learned?” she asked, abruptly.  
  
He seemed slightly taken aback before he frowned. “My father taught me that, with my strength, I most protect all those I hold dear.” He collected a long strand of her hair, weighed it in his palm and ran his fingers over it before drawing it to his lips, looking at her. “That’s the most important thing to me.”  
  
She smiled at him, sad. “I hope Youou will understand that lesson, as well.”   
  
“I plan to teach him everything I know,” he confessed, cheeks turning red.   
  
This time, her smile was more genuine, more gentle than sad. “Then he’ll surely learn important, necessary things.”  
  
He beamed with pride and she closed her eyes, imagining that the future was not so close or so bleak. She knew what she had to do, and knew that she could not possibly be forgiven for it, by her husband, her people, and most especially her son.   
  
There was nothing that she could do, but pray that he would be all right, as the witch of dimensions, as the Tsukuyomi, and as her heart reassured her that he would be.   
  
She touched her husband’s face, memorizing the lines and dips and curves of that warm smile, those warm eyes—because in her heart, she did not think she would be able to see them again after her life diminished, and already she could feel the threads of her life fading away from this realm. She had resigned herself to die, and in that way she felt as if she had abandoned the only people she had ever known and loved so completely.   
  
He turned his head and kissed her palm, either unaware of her sadness or sensing it and wishing to reassure her. It only served to make her heart clench painfully in her chest.   
  
“My lord…”   
  
“Shh,” he whispered, and leaned forward and kissed her soundly on the mouth, silencing her words but not her heart, which screamed only for him.   
  
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured when he pulled away.  
  
He looked sad, smiling without mirth but also without resentment of any kind. He pressed his thumb against the clovered jewels at the center of her forehead and swept away her hair.  
  
“I said you don’t need to apologize to me.”  
  
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”   
  
“Because you won’t tell me.”  
  
“And for that…” she breathed, “I apologize.”   
  
He sighed. “Stubborn wife… you take these burdens all on your own. Keeping these things to yourself.”  
  
 _If only you understood._   
  
She smiled at him and blinked her eyes to try to rid herself of the feelings of tears collecting in the corners.  
  
  
\---  
  
  
“Mother?” her son asked as he opened his eyes and found his mother sitting beside his bed. “Mother, what’s wrong?”  
  
He touched her cheek and she realized that she probably looked as if she were about to cry.  
  
She shook her head. “Sweet child. I’m sorry.”  
  
“Hn,” he grunted and shifted, sitting up. “Don’t apologize. You haven’t done anything wrong.”   
  
She smiled bitterly. She swept sleep-mushed hair from his eyes and shook her head without a word.   
  
He frowned at her but she did not elaborate on her actions. Instead, she brushed her fingers through his spiky hair, so much like his father’s own hair.   
  
“Promise me you’ll always remember what your father taught you,” she asked, surprising herself by the haste in her voice. Her heart clenched.  
  
He seemed surprised, but nodded. “Of course, Mother.”   
  
She nodded. “Thank you.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
The wall before her split open, and she saw the sword and a cruel face, twisted into a sinister smirk. Her eyes widened a moment before she understood that the day of her dreams had finally arrived.  
  
She inhaled a deep breath, but nothing could prepare her for the pain as the sword ripped through her fragile body.   
  
She felt the kekkai fall and heard her son’s screams, and she closed her eyes a moment, imagining what things would have been life, if it had been a different time and she could have been stronger and wiser and braver.   
  
She touched her son’s face, saw the blood smear his tear-streaked face. She spoke and wasn’t sure what she was saying. She called out to the priestess who would care for her son, begged her, _Please take care of my son. Suwa has fallen. Please take care of him, please protect him, and guide him. Save Ginryuu for him, because he will need it when the time comes._  
  
Her hand fell from her son’s face and her thoughts drifted to her husband, who was surely dying because of her.   
  
She knew she would not be forgiven, and that thought echoed in her fading mind.   
  
She smiled, or felt as if she was smiling. “Sweet child,” she told her son, who was trying to stop the blood that poured and pooled from her chest. She felt tears spilling down her own cheeks. “Protect…”   
  
The words caught in her throat and she choked, feeling herself drift away as she felt the blood swirling over the floor beneath her, a warm pool that chilled her body down to the core.   
  
_I’ll take care of him,_ a voice she recognized as the Tsukuyomi’s reassured her. _Please, rest in peace, my lady._   
  
Her eyes were blurring until she couldn’t see her son anymore, and it slowly faded away to darkness, like a dream without a beginning and without an end.


End file.
